This week’s virtual showcase featured great webinars and access to valuable smart-home tech products and programming. By Dianne M. Pogoda
If ever there was a moment to emphasize the benefits of smart-home technology and connected living, that time is now — and the CEDIA Expo virtual experience was the place.
No stranger to the connected-living showcase, having participated in CEDIA shows in 2018 and 2019 — NKBA hosted a virtual booth in the Design + Connection “pavilion,” which it co-branded with Mazarine Ventures, and offered dedicated virtual programming at CEDIA Expo 2020. NKBA hosted a Thought Leadership summit on tech for the kitchen and bath for more than 100 of its certified designers at the 2019 edition.
NKBA teamed with Mazarine, a smart-water technology venture capitalist firm, to create an area within the pavilion for large and small brands to bring their newest smart-water technology to life, as well as host the Living in Place Institute, ASID, DELOS Well Living Lab, and a variety of whole-home technology brands, including Savant, Crestron and Control4.
Building on its “NKBA Connects the Connectors” theme from recent Thought Leadership and Design + Tech Connection summits, NKBA offered two special programming events.
First, through its partnership with Interior Design and SANDOW, NKBA Live presents an episode of Design TV — “Designing the Home of the Future.” Interior Design editor in chief Cindy Allen and special guest Suzie Williford, NKBA’s executive vice president and chief strategy officer, talked with Matthew Emmi, co-founder of technology firm OneButton, and John Spencer of Selldorf Architects, about integrating luxurious design and technology, key tips for collaboration among tech pros and interior designers, illustrated by some of their high-end New York-based projects.
Then, on a special edition of “Brave New Business” about “Connected Living,” sponsored by Control4, NKBA CEO Bill Darcy welcomed Mike Chorney, president of La Scala, a technology design and integration firm in Vancouver, B.C., and Molly Switzer, AKBD, principal of Molly N. Switzer Design, a past NKBA Thirty Under 30 honoree and President of NKBA’s Columbia River Chapter from Portland, Ore. They dove into Connected Living, one of four key themes identified in NKBA’s landmark “Living Impacts Design” lifestyle/life stage research, to learn how homes are becoming places of automation and intuition. The panel discussed how lighting, open-plan environments, easy room-to-room access, whole-home technology and tech-focused health and wellness solutions are influencing design and our relationship with our home.
CEDIA Expo’s slate of other informative sessions included:
- “Home Tech Top 10: Products Designers Need to Know,” with co-hosts KMB Communications CEO and Chief Strategist Katye McGregor Bennett, Modenus Media CEO Veronika Miller and special guests Jamie Briesemeister, Ed Gilmore and Brad Hintze;
- “Wellness Solutions for the New Normal,” featuring DELOS;
- “Increasing Water Efficiency and Managing Water-related Risks in the Smart Home”;
- “Why System Integrators Should Partner with Home Design/ Construction/Medical Professionals”;
- “Smart Water: Healthy Water in the Smart Home”;
- “Hidden in Plain Sight: How to Conceal Tech or Make a Statement With It,” with co-hosts KMB Communications CEO and Chief Strategist Katye McGregor Bennett, Modenus Media CEO Veronika Miller and special guests Jamie Briesemeister, Noah Kaplan, Rocky Settecasi and Shanna Haecker.
All programming will be available on-demand on CEDIA Expo Virtual until Dec. 31.
